SOURCE: "Ernst Haeckel," in Major Prophets of ToDay, Little, Brown, and Company, 1914, pp. 242-99.

In the following excerpt, Slosson presents a wide-ranging biographical sketch of Haeckel, by turns laudatory and critical, which views his work and thought in the context of his personal life.

Monistic investigation of nature as knowledge of the true, monistic ethic as training for the good, monistic aesthetic as pursuit of the beautiful—these are the three great departments of our monism: by the harmonious and consistent cultivation of these we effect at last the truly beatific union of religion and science so painfully longed for by so many to-day. The True, the Beautiful, the Good, these are the three august Divine Ones before which we bow the knee in adoration; in the unforced combination and mutual supplementing of these we gain the pure idea of God. To this triune Divine Ideal shall the...